The Thread Killer

This week's episode was pretty damn good, I'd say. - That is three weeks of excellent Tim Storm promos in a row. I love this guy, and I love how popular he is with the fans in the GPB studios. - I thought Dice vs. Konley was a good match, but I don't get the Zicky Dice push. We're what...a month since the PPV and we've seen CW Anderson once, while Zicky Dice is all over the show? Odd choice. Like I said before, he reminds me of a circa 1980's JTTS. - The Stevens/Question Mark stuff was funny as usual. - The women's match was actually really good, and I didn't miss Melina one little bit. - I thought the Aldis/Starks match was really fun. Unlike @Coffey, I am actually enjoying them embracing this whole 6:05 time limit stuff. It's unique to the NWA, it sets them apart from the competition and I've enjoyed pretty much all of the 6:05 matches they've had so far. This match put Starks over nicely and didn't hurt Aldis at all. Aldis has done a great job going full heel and really turning the NWA fans in Atlanta against him. - The Drake/Storm vs. Cabana/Anderson match was fun...they're really telegraphing the Anderson turn on Cabana, but it's fine. - The end segment was fine. I can live with Aldis vs. Ricky Morton as a TV match or whatever, it doesn't really bother me. Even if they fight for the title at the PPV, the real focus of the next PPV is the crowning of the new TV champion, so the World Title match doesn't need to be a marquee match. I still don't like the Rock & Rolls being the Tag Champs, but the NWA tag division is crap right now, so whatever I guess. So I guess coming up soon it's going to be Robert Gibson and two unknown partners against The Wild Cards and...Scott Steiner?! I'm not really interested in watching Scott Steiner wrestling in 2020, but they don't script the promos in the NWA so that might be interesting at the very least. There was a lot more actual wrestling this week, I thought this was a really good episode of Power.

If there's a TV camera on, there's always a chance Jimmy Hart will show up.

Not only am I looking forward to this, and not only is this an excellent idea but this may be one of the greatest thread titles in PWO history.

Nah, I gave up on this show. Which is too bad really, because (as is obvious in this thread) at one point I was a huge fan. Like I said, it was a combination of Eric going back to WWE and the fact that I am getting really tired of Conrad Thompson's formula. I find that all of his podcasts are pretty much interchangeable at this point, Conrad keeps going back to the same shows and the same questions, using the same interview techniques over and over again. And seriously, enough with the fucking Meltzer bashing. I still really like Eric Bischoff, I think he's highly intelligent, generally insightful and surprisingly self-critical. Now that Bischoff has left WWE I still check to see what the weekly topics are but nothing yet has interested me enough to check it out. This was absolutely my favorite podcast at one point and it was pretty much a weekly must listen, but now I can't be bothered. I guess Conrad's formula is not sustainable long term. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up giving up on Arn and JR sooner rather than later, as well.

I thought this week's episode was just okay. Up to this point I have thought Power had been pretty damn good since the PPV but this week felt like a bit of a stumble to me. The Tim Storm promo was really good. I thought the whole Stevens squash leading into the confrontation and match with Murdoch was okay. I like Murdoch getting TV time and a potential shot at the National Title, but I would still rather see him away from the comedy stuff. Big fan of him beating Stevens with an Indian Deathlock, though. Not sure what the point of the Pope segment with Kingston and Homicide was. The Eli Drake promo was okay. It's pretty damn clear that these guys don't have scripted promos because sometimes they end up going all over the place and get a little lost. I totally skipped the Melina and friends segment and subsequent match, because anything involving Melina since she showed up has pretty much been grim death as far as I'm concerned. The Main Event just pissed me off. The general consensus I've seen is that the Aldis/Storm match they did on the debut episode was the best TV match the NWA has done since Power debuted. Coming out of the PPV they finally pay off the Storm/Aldis angle and set up another match between them quite nicely. They advertise it in advance, so I was looking forward to it. They spend the whole episode this week hyping it up...and then they don't deliver the match. That struck me as really stupid for two major reasons. I've never seen that idea work, when you do a bait-and-switch and the fans are tricked into anticipating a match they don't end up getting. Those of us looking forward to Storm/Aldis IV did not want to see Storm/Isaacs. Did anybody? Secondly, ever since the PPV the main focus of the show has been the TV Title Tournament. Now your World Champion comes out and basically shits all over the title and claims that he's not even going to bother competing in the tournament because it's basically a joke and beneath him. WTF? So what was the point of entering him in the tournament to begin with? Was this just some stupid angle to get Aldis heel heat for refusing to fight Storm again? If so, it's just stupid. Having the guy who is pretty much the face of your company belittle the new championship title you're introducing (that your next PPV is booked around as well) is just bad booking, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree with you more. Somebody needs to put together a compilation of everything Tim Storm has done since Power debuted, force the WWE "writers" to watch it and then shout at them: "That's how you book a babyface, dumbasses."

That's just not accurate or true. The entire premise of Cornette's Drive-Thru podcast is to answer fan questions, just like Arn Anderson's podcast does every other week. And more often than not, the questions are about Cornette's career and the Territories. If you want to make the argument that "The Jim Cornette Experience" is nothing but Cornette ranting about modern Pro Wrestling and AEW in particular, I can buy that...but to say he doesn't discuss any era in which he played a part is totally incorrect. And he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Pro Wrestling history up to the modern era, so you also can't honestly say that he doesn't discuss eras he is familiar with. Hell, that is the main reason I listen to his podcasts. If he didn't talk about history and his career and did nothing except rant about modern Pro Wrestling I most likely wouldn't listen to him.

AEW has put the first match between Cody and Darby Allin from Fyter Fest on YouTube for free. That match was pretty much my first exposure to Darby Allin, and I am guessing I am not alone in that. Upon first seeing him, I assumed Allin was a typical underweight indie geek but the longer that match went, the more I bought into him. By the end, I was becoming a fan and wanted to see more of him. I thought his confrontation with Jericho and his match with Moxley on Dynamite a while back were outstanding as well. I think Darby Allin has the mythical "it factor." I don't know if it's his gimmick, or how his personality comes across on screen or his Pro Wrestling style, but I believe this kid is a definite star in the making. I know at the time of the original draw there were some fans who thought Cody shouldn't have gone to a draw with somebody who was so obviously "beneath" him in the pecking order. There were others who thought just making it to a draw helped establish Allin and put him over. As everybody knows, Allin teamed with Cody on the last episode of Dynamite against Butcher and Blade. Apparently the storyline condition for this teaming with Cody is that Cody had to agree to giving him a rematch from the Fyter Fest match. That match is happening on Wednesday. So here is my question...if you are Cody, do you put Darby Allin over clean to establish him as a Main Event level guy? Based on the crowd reactions he gets, I'd say he is ready for that level of push. And let's be honest, Cody is so over in AEW that he is pretty much bulletproof at this point, I don't think a loss to Darby Allin would take away from him or his angle with MJF. I guess the safe route to go would be to have MJF or his goon interfere and cost Cody or Allin the match, but I am legitimately curious to see if other people here at PWO think Darby Allin is ready for that level of win, or if it is too soon or would be harmful to Cody. Opinions?

I remember when I was 15 years old, I went to a WWF show at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. It was in late 1985, as I recall. Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart had just started teaming together, and this was very early in their partnership. Bret Hart was still billed as "Brett Hart" and had really short hair, they weren't even introduced at The Hart Foundation, and they hadn't adopted the Pink & Black look yet. I'm not even sure that Jimmy Hart was managing them yet. Anyhow, they fought Tony Atlas and Ivan Putski. I didn't really know who Hart & Neidhart were, but I was familiar with Atlas and Putski. I really enjoyed the match a bunch and went around telling my friends how great it had been. After all, Ivan Puski and Tony Atlas were both huge, right? I assume that is what impressed me back then. A few years ago, I stumbled across the match on YouTube, so I watched it again. I got about five minutes in before I was like: "What the fuck...this match sucks!" But if you'd have asked me before I saw it again, I'd have sworn based on memory that it was a really good Tag Team match. It's amazing how stuff that might have hooked us as fans or seemed good to us at the time, just doesn't stand up anymore.

I agree, and that's probably my biggest issue with Omega's strange affectations, right there. We all know Pro Wrestling is fake, but we also know that as fans we're supposed to buy into the fact that the basic concept is two guys wanting to beat each other in a wrestling match, and when the emotions are high it boils down to two guys wanting to beat each other up. That requires the guy on offense to realistically pretend to be aggressive and the guy on the receiving end to realistically sell that aggression. I've seen Omega sell pain, but in general his reactions don't seem normal when considering the situation. To me it always looks like somebody is trying to kick his ass, and his response is to do a little dance, shake his head and point at something. That's hard to buy into, from a Pro Wrestling psychology standpoint. He usually takes me out of the match with his reactions. And that's not even getting into his promos. I've only ever seen Omega promos in ROH and AEW and I can't ever remember seeing him act at all realistically aggressive during a promo. I've never seen him sell actual emotional investment in the match. He always sounds like he's in a fairly pleasant mood, or at worst he's mildly annoyed due to some minor inconvenience. Remember his promo on Dynamite at the end of November? He had just been through a hideous death match with Jon Moxley, and was heading into another important match with Pac so his natural response was to...cut a comedy promo. If the biggest defense people can come up with is "look how over he is" then that doesn't say much for him. I've said it a million times here at PWO, since when is popularity an indicator of how good something actually is? I always use my tried and true example of Nickelback. They can sell out arenas all day long, that doesn't make them good. Or let's use a Pro Wrestling example, WWE Raw has more viewers than AEW Dynamite, does that mean Raw is a better show? Of course not. Kenny Omega is very athletic and he's capable of being part of very good Pro Wrestling matches, but I have yet to see any convincing evidence that he is one of the best in the world right now, never mind of all time. That is one hell of a stretch. When it comes to Kenny I am more inclined to agree with Jim Cornette than I am the average AEW fan, but as I said previously...I am a 50 year old guy who has been a Pro Wrestling fan for 37 years. I am hardly AEW's target demographic.

In my opinion, the TV since Into The Fire has been pretty damn good. One of my biggest complaints about the NWA was how thin the roster is, and they are certainly addressing that problem by bringing in more guys like CW Anderson, Pope D'Angelo Dinero, May Valentine (and uh...Zicky Dice, I guess?) I am really enjoying the TV Title tournament so far, that Ricky Starks vs. Eddie Kingston match was great. The flying bodypress by Starks onto Kingston was one of the best and most crisply executed that I have seen in recent memory. They confirmed that Trevor Murdoch is staying around so that is great news and hopefully means there is a big push in his future. The Aldis, Lattimer, Kamille and Isaacs stable are fine with me, they even got matching jackets...but no stable name yet. Nice to see ongoing storylines explained and pay off. That Tim Storm promo was fucking gold and I am really looking forward to Storm vs. Aldis IV in the TV title tournament.

I have no idea who those two are (and based on that clip, I have no wish to find out) but to me that clip basically looks like two 7th graders doing a really bad imitation of Lucha. If that is what passes for good on the indies right now, then WWE really has drained all the usable talent into NXT and left nothing but the dregs. Yikes.

The whole lawsuit over the shirt story is kind of interesting. One of his snitch-tagging fans sent Cornette a gif on Twitter of some Death Match guy getting badly injured, and Cornette made fun of it and made some sort of inflammatory comment about how they should have let the guy bleed to death. The guy didn't take that well, (his name is "G-Raver" or something) and responded back by registering a domain "FuckJimCornette.com" and then he started selling a T-shirt featuring Jim Cornette's severed head with the same inscription: "Fuck Jim Cornette." Cornette didn't care about the sentiment behind the shirt (he was actually pretty funny, acting shocked that anybody could possibly express those sentiments about him since he is cuddly as a basket of puppies) but he did care that this guy was making money from selling something that had Cornette's name and likeness on it. Like a lot of those old school guys, Cornette has his name and likeness legally trademarked, and he has always been very militant about people using both to make money without giving him his cut. Cornette's lawyer sent the guy behind the shirt and the companies selling the shirt a "Cease and Desist" letter. One of the companies actually stopped selling the shirt and sent their stock to Cornette, who turned around and started selling the T-Shirt on his own Cornette's Collectibles site and giving the proceeds to charity. Problem was "G-Raver" got pissed off about that and went back to selling the shirt again, so Cornette sued him. The whole reason this is interesting to me is because it's possible that the Death Match guy can turn around and claim that the shirt is "parody" and is therefore covered by Fair Use, much like the bWo in ECW was. However, the guy isn't really doing a parody he is blatantly using Cornette's actual name and likeness and trying to make money from it. Not to mention, even if "G-Raver" does manage to win this lawsuit I am assuming he'll be buried in legal fees so even if he wins, he's losing in the big picture. I assume unknown Death Match wrestlers don't have limitless funds with which to pay their legal teams during protracted legal disputes, whereas Cornette's #1 sponsor for his podcasts is an ambulance chaser named Stephen P. New, who is representing Cornette. Some people are painting this as Jim Cornette being thin-skinned and unable to take a joke, claiming he's more than happy to insult people but when they do it back to him, he sues. I'm not totally sure that is the case. It's more the fact that Cornette zealously protects his trademark and if you're going to use his name and picture to make money, then you'd better be writing him a check for it. This kind of stuff was the reason Cornette fell out with the MLW Network over his podcasts and the "Jim Cornette's Talking Sense" channel on YouTube. These old school carny types don't fuck around when it comes to getting their money.

The whole "Jim Cornette is irrelevant in 2019" argument needs to stop, honestly. That's like tuning into your local Classic Rock/Oldies station and then acting surprised that they're not playing Post Malone. Cornette has made it abundantly clear (pretty much constantly) that he doesn't want to be "relevant" to "modern" Pro Wrestling, because he hates it. He's relevant to his own fan base, and whether some people like it or not, he has a huge fan base. Some of them are older fans like myself who like listening to his stories about Pro Wrestling history and the territories. Some of them dislike modern Pro Wrestling as much as he does and agree with his opinions on that. Some of them are just moronic drooling sycophants who will agree blindly with anything he says and harass and troll the people he doesn't like. It's a very large demographic, whether some fans want to admit that or not. You can disagree with him, you can even hate him but if you cannot possibly deny his popularity or the fact that his views echo those of a large number of Pro Wrestling fans. I agree with @Tenese Sarwieh, the people who are irate that he's still out there and still ranting and raving about modern Pro Wrestling should probably just ignore him...because he's not going away anytime soon.

When it comes to Kenny, it's not just the bug eyed facials, and it's not just the odd hand gestures. It's the constant pointing out to the crowd, and the excited little dances he does on the spot, before he runs the ropes. It's when he flings his arms wide and flails them around. Kenny Omega's mannerisms in the ring are just...odd. And a little off-putting, in my opinion. I find his quirky affectations to be distracting during the match. @SomethingSavage pretty much hit the nail on the head...I often find myself asking why the hell he is doing that, and exactly what he's trying to convey? Is he constipated? Does he need to use the bathroom? I'll say this much about Kenny Omega, if his goal is to be unique and come across as different from pretty much everybody else when it comes to his style in the ring, then by all means...mission accomplished. Cornette and Brian Last call him "Jazz Hands" because they like to joke that when he works he looks more like a modern interpretive dancer than a Professional Wrestler. And in my opinion, they're not wrong. The nickname is apt. The funny thing is that (unlike Cornette) Brian Last actually likes Kenny Omega. He's just pointing out the rather obvious quirks Omega has when it comes to his presentation. It's not even so much the scathing insult that some people like to make it out to be, as it is pointing out the obvious.

I meant to mention that as well. One of the highlights of this show for me was Stu Bennett. He's excellent and so is his pairing with Joe Galli. I am a Jim Cornette fan but these two guys have way more chemistry than Galli and Cornette had. This whole Cornette situation has turned out to be a blessing in disguise considering the way it turned out. The NWA doesn't have to worry about Cornette overshadowing them with constant controversy and now that he is gone, a lot of the NWA haters seem to have moved on...meanwhile they actually come out ahead when it comes to their broadcast team.

I enjoyed this week's episode of Power(rr). Obviously they are going to hype the Marty Scurll thing, and so they should. The Aron Stevens promo was funny, and I loved the shots at WWE. ("That's right...I said BELT.") It went a little long for my tastes, but overall it was fine. I am a fan of the TV Title Tournament, and I don't have a huge issue with the 6:05 time limit. The traditional time limit for the TV Title in JCP was 15:00 minutes, but Power is only an hour or thereabouts, so I can understand the need for a shorter time limit. Plus, it really puts the onus on the challengers to win the match quickly, because I assume if the matches go to a draw the champ retains. I have been hoping that the NWA was going to add new talent. I marked out when CW Anderson showed up, as I have always been a fan of his. He is exactly the kind of guy the NWA should be going after. When I said I wanted new faces, Zicky Dice wasn't exactly what I had in mind...but okay. I guess it makes sense that if the NWA wants new talent that some of it is going to come from Championship Wrestling from Hollywood, considering their relationship with the NWA. I was already planning a TV Title reign for CW Anderson in my mind, when Zicky Dice won the match. I can live with that, provided CW sticks around. (I haven't read the spoilers for the rest of the tapings, so I assume he does show up again.) Zicky Dice reminds me of a JTTS they had in Stampede Wrestling when I was a kid named Goldie Rogers. I was happy to see the names in the tournament, there are some potentially great champions in there. I was shocked to see Aldis enter the tournament. Cool to see Nikita Koloff as well. The Drake/Anderson rematch was okay, although I preferred their match at the PPV. The angle at the end was obviously the interesting thing. Aldis aligns himself with the Wild Cards, they pretty much go public about the Kamille/Lattimer relationship, and it looks like we have a new stable, I guess. I was puzzled by them attacking Tim Storm, since he can't get a match with Aldis for revenge, but then I remembered that they are both in the TV tournament, so maybe that will play into the situation. The only stuff I didn't really like this week was the continued emphasis on the Rock & Roll Express, and Melina. Both situations cannot possibly result in a decent match in the ring, so I don't really care about it. But as always the show was more enjoyable than not, and the hour just flew by.

I'm only about halfway through last night's episode of NXT and holy shit...Mauro Ranallo is fucking insufferable on this show tonight, he's at his all time stupid forced pop culture spouting, broadcast partner interrupting worst. Where are Corey Graves and JBL when you need them?

I don't know if it's true, but I had heard that before Dynamite ever debuted AEW and TNT were originally only expecting the show to draw 500,000 to 800,000 viewers a week maximum anyhow, so they probably won't hit the panic button. I'm not saying they should, either. Maybe these ratings are more in line with what they were expecting all along. I'm just legitimately curious about what the internal reaction to the ratings drop will be. With the impeachment vote and the holiday season, the ratings were bound to be a bit wonky anyhow. Plus they were going against the Season Finale of Survivor...that's what I was watching live.

So I guess the score this week is: NXT: 795,000 AEW: 683,000 That's quite a drop for AEW from the 1.4 million they did the week of their debut. NXT did 891,000 the first week the shows went head to head. It doesn't seem to be so much that NXT is going up, it's that AEW are going down. I wonder if they are concerned?

Overall, I thought the show was actually pretty good this week. More good than bad. The opener was pretty good, a lot better than I expected. I saw online this week that Chris Jericho had spoken to The Lucha Brothers backstage about following standard Tag Team wrestling rules, and it looks like that might actually be true. (He told the story on Konnan's podcast apparently.) The Lucha Bros actually tagged in and out, and this was a much more traditional Tag Match than I had anticipated. It was pretty good. I'm not crazy about the idea of an Omega/Hangman feud (if that's where they're going) but I thought it was good. I really loved the Cody/Allin vs. Butcher and Blade match. I especially love that it led to Cody/Allin II in the New Year. The fact that there is a woman in bunny ears and a guy who comes to the ring dressed like The Gimp from Pulp Fiction, and that is supposed to be somehow intimidating to people is odd, but whatever. Butcher and Blade looked better this week than last. The Brandi/Kong stuff was mercifully short. I don't think Kong needs Brandi at all, but hey...that's me. The Jericho/Jungle Boy match was nothing more than classic old school gold. It was exceptionally well done and Jungle Boy did a great job at playing the underdog who won't quit. Great stuff, I loved this whole segment...especially the Hager/Luchasaurus confrontation and Marko Stunt KO. If you have to use Marko Stunt, that is how you use him. He really helped put Hager over. And the post-match promo was awesome, the interplay with Schiavone and Jericho was hilarious. Britt Baker vs. Kris Statlander was really good, and the right person went over. No complaints there, they really have something with Statlander. Once again, I don't think Brandi needed to be inserted into all this, but whatever. I like where they're going with Tully and Spears trying to find the right partner. Then the show kind of went to shit. The match was okay, I guess. I've never been a big Young Bucks fan, but I respect what they can do. I don't have any major complaints about the match itself, but the angle at the end was just flat out stupid, and pretty much inexcusable. I know people have been going on about how the vignettes over the past few weeks have been supposedly helping get The Dark Order over. And that's all fine, except that at the end of the day after all the vignettes have aired and all the smoke has cleared...The Dark Order are still The Dark Order. You can't hide that and you can't change it...especially by adding Reynolds and Sliver of all fucking things. You can spend all the money you want trying to make them more interesting, but you can't disguise the fact that honestly, it's a stupid gimmick and even more importantly...they're not really all that much fun to watch. I fail to understand the logic of having a bunch of jobbers in masks beating up your top guys. It makes no sense and even more importantly, it really can't lead anywhere interesting. Does anybody here really want to see Evil Uno, Greyson and now Reynolds and Silver fight The Elite? I sure don't. The only possible explanation I can see to justify this is that they knew everybody was going to be watching NXT at this point, so they just threw a bunch of stupid shit out there. Otherwise, I have no idea what the hell they were thinking. That last segment might actually be the very first time since the supposed "Wednesday Night War" started that I thought AEW actually deserved to lose in the ratings. Not for the whole show, which was pretty damn good...but for that one segment for sure. Somebody really needs to get it through to these guys that sorry...The Dark Order kinda suck.

Ha, that's hilarious. I love the Flair/Steamboat Trilogy from 89 and I've seen that match a million times, but I totally spaced out and forgot that.

I was flipping through the channels when I came across The New Day fighting The Revival on my WWE Network feed channel. I literally had no idea that there was a WWE PPV tonight. I have zilch going on this evening, so I'll watch this as long as it's good and it doesn't irritate me. So...not very long, probably. Hey, this crowd seems really dead. Hey, remember when gimmick matches were booked in order to blow off big feuds, due to an ongoing angle or story...and NOT just because there was a Pay Per View named TLC?

NWA: "Into The Fire" The PPV is coming from the GPB Studios in Atlanta where Power has been taping. I'd have much preferred that they held the PPV in a different venue to give the event a more "special" feel overall and differentiate the PPV events from the TV tapings. I legitimately enjoy old school studio wrestling, but even Georgia Championship Wrestling and JCP didn't hold their big shows in the Techwood Studios. I'm pretty sure the NWA could have found a small venue somewhere in the Atlanta area that seats 250-500 fans which they could have dressed up to look good. Hell, Impact can barely draw flies to their shows and they always manage to find small venues and dress them up to make their big shows look good. I love what Impact has been doing with The Rebel Complex here in Toronto, and I think they only put about 400 people in there. So the NWA could do it, if they tried. It's all about picking an appropriately sized venue so the place doesn't look half empty, then laying out the venue intelligently so it doesn't look cavernous (so unlike what ROH does) and then having the right number of seats and being smart about how you place the cameras and mic the crowd noise. Having said that, I do understand that the NWA is really trying to save money and run this organization in a fiscally intelligent manner. The GPB studio already has TV cameras and production equipment on site, so I can see why they chose to use it. Also, I will give them credit, they did try and spruce things up a bit for the PPV. The lighting was dimmer, they used theme music and the Wrestlers entered through a hall above the stands and descended to the ring down the steps, through the fans. That made it different from the Power tapings. This entrance also gave the babyfaces a good chance to interact with the fans. There was a man with a young kid (his son, I assume) who were sitting in the stands on the aisle, and I thought it was cute how Colt Cabana and Nick Aldis took the time to pay special attention to the kid. Also, Stu Bennett referred to the building on several occasions as "The NWA Arena" so I guess this is pretty much their home base for the time being. But long term, I really hope they just do the Power tapings there and then have the PPV events elsewhere. Speaking of Stu Bennett, I thought he did an outstanding job. I'd never heard him do Color Commentary before, but he was really good and really polished. To be honest, I actually preferred the combination of Galli & Bennett to Galli and Jim Cornette. Bennett was very serious, with a heelish slant to his commentary but he was also funny on a couple of occasions Bennett's commentary far exceeded my expectations and I am looking forward to him being the color man on Power from now on. Eli Drake vs. Ken Anderson This match was hardly a five-star classic, but it was a hell of a lot better than I expected it to be. That is entirely down to Eli Drake, though. Drake looked really sharp and in my opinion, this guy really needs to be one of the main focuses of the promotion in the future. He's awesome on the microphone (despite the continuous comparisons to The Rock and Stone Cold) and his ring work is solid. There was one awesome spot where Ken Anderson was slumped on the top turnbuckle (trying to catch his breath I assume) when Eli Drake did an amazing vertical leap to the top rope, it was very impressive. Ken Anderson was the reason this match wasn't better than just "good." He tried, and in the opening segment of the match they did some passable mat work and chain wrestling. The problem is, Ken Anderson is not in great physical condition. His belly is still quite ample and by the end of this match you could tell that he was clearly out of gas. Right before the finish, he was propped up in the corner huffing and puffing and looking exhausted, and believe me...it wasn't him selling. But despite that, this was a solid opener and it went the right amount of time, around 10 minutes. One of my big worries going into this PPV was that the matches would be short or not very good, but this allayed my concerns. Looking at it "star rating" wise, I would give this match 2.5 stars, which is decent. Nick Aldis/James Storm Promo This was a good segment to hype the Main Event. Nick Aldis has been doing an excellent job portraying the classic champion who thinks he is carrying the entire NWA on his back. This promo and the pre-taped packages on this show really demonstrated what a solid interview Nick Aldis is. Either he has gotten noticeably better, or he never got a fair chance to show what he could do when he was "Magnus" in TNA. Thunder Rosa vs. Tasha Steelz The NWA is obviously trying to beef up their Women's Division, which is good. Steelz cut a decent promo before the match, and the match itself was solid if unremarkable. I think Thunder Rosa is probably the best female talent in the NWA right now in terms of the overall package - mic work, ring skills and overall look, so the right person went over but Steelz got in enough offense to still look good. This match did exactly what it was supposed to go, introduced Steelz and made her look good while establishing that Thunder Rosa is one of the top names in the NWA. During this match, I couldn't help but think about the Big Swole vs. Emi Sakura match on AEW Dynamite this past week, which I was pretty sure was never going to end. Actually, I ended up tapping out and changing the channel during that match, so for all I know it might still be going. In contrast, this match demonstrated to me that you can accomplish what you need to during a match - including introducing a new character - without taking over 10 minutes to do it. After the match, Thunder Rosa got into a confrontation with Ashley Vox and ended up slapping on an armbar which looked totally legit and made me cringe. She bent that girl's arm in way I believe arms were not meant to bend. As I said, this match and the post-match angle went a long way in establishing Thunder Rosa. I'd give the match about 2 stars, which is decent. The Question Mark vs. Trevor Murdoch I am somewhat conflicted about this match and the whole Question Mark deal in general. Aron Stevens is heavily involved in the Question Mark angle and I always have time for him. I don't mind comedy in my Pro Wrestling, provided that it's actually funny. In my opinion, since coming to the NWA Stevens has been consistently entertaining. I can understand how his goofy form of comedy might not be for everybody, I get that. However, if Pro Wrestling can find room for a guy that throws people around with his dick and matches with Invisible Men, then there should be plenty of room for Aron Stevens. I don't see a huge difference between the Aron Stevens/Question Mark stuff and the goofy stuff Orange Cassidy has been doing in AEW since Dynamite debuted. I have managed to see the humor in Orange Cassidy, so it would be stupid to criticize Aron Stevens and The Question Mark. Comedy is a part of Pro Wrestling, I get that. Aron Stevens coming to the ring in a Gi and holding the Mongrovian Flag while Stu Bennett claimed that in the past three weeks, Stevens had become a third degree blackbelt in Mongrovian Karate did crack me up. The Mongrovian flag and National Anthem also made me laugh out loud as well. Here's where I was conflicted...of all people there is no damn way that Trevor Murdoch should have been involved in this stuff. He especially shouldn't have been jobbing to The Question Mark. I saw an interview with Billy Corgan and Dave Lagana this past week where they said that the response to some things on Power had caught them by surprise and caused them to change direction unexpectedly...and they were clearly talking about the reception to The Question Mark. The fans in the GPB studios have adopted The Question Mark kind of like the old ECW Arena fans adopted J.T. Smith. Cool, I get that. The difference is, Paul Heyman didn't respond to that by having J.T. Smith beat The Sandman in a competitive match. Nick Aldis has been saying in a couple of recent interviews that Trevor Murdoch has really opened some eyes in the NWA about how good he still is...so they clearly know they have something with the guy. So there is really no excuse for having him lose to a comedy character. This was what it was, a short, moderately competitive match between a comedy character and a legit Pro Wrestler. When that happens, the Pro Wrestler should go over, I don't care how popular the comedy guy is. Trevor Murdoch has been nothing short of awesome in the NWA so far, and they need to get him far away from this stuff and do more with him, ASAP. If they don't, then they're idiots. For having Murdoch lose, I rate this match as a DUD. NWA World Tag Team Championship Match: The Rock & Roll Express vs. The Wild Cards Speaking of stupid crap which shouldn't be happening... Ugh. I've said before and I'll say again...I respect the hell out of the Rock & Roll Express, but there is no way in hell they should be the NWA World Tag Team Champions and taking up a spot on this PPV. Almost worse than that, they have fucking Eddie Kingston and Homicide there and working as corner men? What a waste. I also came to a conclusion during this match about The Wild Cards and that is that Royce Isaacs kind of sucks. I really think he's the reason that his team doesn't have better matches. Bram is perfectly capable of having good matches, but Isaacs can't hold up his end of the deal...and being in the there with a couple of Senior Citizens ain't helping him any. The parts of this match with Lattimer were okay, but Isaacs's offense looks like shit and he screwed up a couple of really basic spots where he was supposed to be getting his signals crossed with Lattimer. I can't believe Ricky Morton did a suicide dive between the ropes at his age. This match was pretty weak. At least it was only around 5 minutes. I can't believe the Rock & Rolls retained. I really hope they don't make it out of the next set of Power tapings with those belts. The NWA also needs to grab a couple more Tag Teams (who are younger than 120 years combined age) ASAP. This was a 1 star match, and I'm probably being generous. Announcement The NWA is returning to PPV on January 24, 2020 and the NWA is bringing back the World Television Championship. Stu Bennett displayed the title belt, and it is the classic NWA TV title from the JCP era that Arn made famous, so that is awesome. From the way they worded this announcement, I am not sure if the PPV itself is going to be a tournament to fill the TV title, or if the PPV will feature the finals of a tournament, or what...but seeing as how they were announced together I did get the impression that the two announcements are linked. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm not sure the NWA roster as it stands right now is big enough to sustain three singles championships, but as an old school fan it sure is cool to see that TV belt again. As I mentioned above, I have been checking out most of the interviews that Corgan and Lagana have been doing leading up to this PPV, and based on stuff they have been saying, and other stuff I have read online, I think I understand why the NWA is doing another PPV so soon. They were pretty upfront going into the launch of Power on YouTube that they didn't think a YouTube show was going to be financially viable for them long term. I think originally they were planning on going the traditional route and getting a TV deal and then doing quarterly Pay Per Views, etc. However, they are saying they were totally caught off guard by the response to Power. Similarly they have apparently been pretty surprised about the response to this PPV. There are reports that the pre-sales for Into The Fire actually exceeded the number of buys they had projected for the PPV overall. Billy Corgan has said that considering the current level of interest and fan support for the NWA, their current business model of two days of TV tapings every other month followed by a PPV might actually be sustainable long term. The fact that they have gone ahead and announced the next show for next month seems to bear that theory out. That means they can't afford to lose any more viewers for Power and they have to keep selling Pay Per Views though, so I guess the onus is on them to make this work. Eli Drake Promo...Mr. Anderson attacks Drake comes out and cuts a decent promo which I was hoping would hint at his next angle or title aspirations...until Mr. Anderson appears and attacks him. So I guess this feud isn't over, and I'm not so hyped about that. Here's what strikes me as weird...Eli Drake attacked Anderson a couple of weeks ago from behind with that metal turnbuckle wrench thing. Total heel move, and the announcers were playing up how brutal it was during Anderson's match earlier. However the fans are cheering for Drake now, and Anderson's attack here comes across as a total heel move and the fans are giving him shit while he's doing it. There is no clear babyface/heel dynamic in this feud. Maybe the NWA roster is so small they don't want to paint guys into one role and then have to do turns for every new angle. I'm not crazy about this feud continuing, but credit where it's due...this attack was really well done by Anderson and sold really well by Drake. And huge props to Stu Bennett as well, he did a great job of putting this whole deal over. Melina & Marti Belle vs. Alyson Kaye & ODB I still don't get why they didn't just have Alyson Kaye defend her title on this PPV, but whatever. So anyhow...this match sucked. Melina is awful, and has no business in the ring if this is the best she can do. Bless Marti Belle for trying, but as somebody said elsewhere (I think it was @rovert) she wrestles like she has two left feet. Alyson Kaye is very good, and ODB did fine...but they didn't have much to work with. I was going to say this match was too long, but I think that just might be because it wasn't any good. DUD. For the NWA National Championship: Colt Cabana (c) vs. Ricky Starks vs. Aron Stevens I was surprised by this match. I wasn't expecting all that much from it and it was pretty damn good. Aron Stevens has the whole cowardly heel act down to a science at this point. The part of the match where he bailed out and hid behind the Christmas Tree was pretty damn funny, as was his hiding underneath the tarp by the production equipment. I recently heard Arn Anderson say that in Triple Threat Matches you always have to make one guy step aside and sell while the other two fight, and he is right. If you're going to follow that blueprint, you might as well make it entertaining...especially when the end result was Aron Stevens sneaking in and stealing the win and the title in the process. This match was good, especially some of the segments when Starks and Cabana were taking turns beating up Stevens, because his comedic selling was quite good (if you like that sort of thing.) Cabana actually looked really good in this match, as did Starks. Fun match. I'd go 3 stars for this one. Tim Storm Promo This guy is such a terrific old school babyface. He just has natural "good guy" charisma. I know a lot of people claim the "Mama Storm" stuff is cheesy, and it is...but keep in mind that Tim Storm used the line "Mama Storm still loves me" as a throw away line during a promo and it was the fans that jumped on it and started chanting her name. Hell, the guy is reportedly selling a good number of Mama Storm T-shirts. Like it or not, the whole thing is popular. I am really hoping we get to see Tim Storm challenge Aron Stevens for the National Championship, because that would be a really fun case of an old school babyface vs. heel rivalry. Main Event for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship (Best 2 out of 3 falls) Nick Aldis (c) vs. James Storm I don't ever remember seeing a 2 out of 3 falls match where one of the falls wasn't a quick pin. This match was no exception. This did a good job of either resolving or furthering all the storylines leading into the match. James Storm openly speculated during one of his promos that Nick Aldis had been flattering Tim Storm in order to manipulate him into favoring him during the match, but we found out that Tim Storm is still going to be Tim Storm and he was totally fair as the ref in the second and eventually the third fall. Aldis made it clear that he didn't want Kamille out there, but she showed up anyhow and ended up costing him the first fall in the aforementioned quick fall. We don't yet know if that was deliberate, but even if it wasn't we can guarantee that Aldis isn't going to be happy that she didn't listen to him and almost cost him his title in the process. Technically, I thought this was a very good match. The first fall went quickly, and I quite enjoyed the brawling in the second fall...especially how it favored James Storm and you could tell (and the announcers put over) that it wasn't Nick Aldis's game. I loved it when Storm got thrown into the Christmas Tree and Stu Bennett called it "Mongrovian Pine." The third fall had some good in ring action and close calls, culminating in the ref bump and eventual finish. The only thing that would stop me from calling this a great match is that I found James Storm to be a little sloppy. He clearly messed up a few spots during this match. I don't think he was tired either, I think his coordination seemed a little off and he isn't quite as limber as he used to be. It reminded me of Chris Jericho in the sense that once you get to be a certain age and there are things you can't do anymore, you should maybe stop trying to do them and change up your act like Jericho has. It didn't kill the match or anything, but NWA James Storm of 2019 is definitely not the same as TNA James Storm of 2009. All in all, I was satisfied with the match and the resolution of the storylines leading into the match. We know Tim Storm is still a good guy, we know there is trouble with Kamille and Aldis and due to the way the finish went, James Storm is no worse the wear for losing the match. In that respect, it was smartly booked which is not something I have been saying about the NWA up to this point. I'd say this was a 3.5 star match, which is very good. As far as the angle after the match, that was a definite "Holy Shit" moment when Marty Scurll made his entrance. I know people had pretty much been speculating about whether he'd show up in NXT (or maybe even on the WWE's so-called "main roster") back in Japan, or AEW. As far as I know, nobody was seriously predicting him coming to the NWA. There is no way you can possibly look at this other than it being a huge signing for the NWA. I have seen some AEW fans freaking out online today, saying they can't believe Marty Scurll would go to the stupid NWA instead of AEW. I think they might be getting ahead of themselves. As I said earlier, working in the NWA requires you to work a whopping 3 days every 2 months. It's not exactly the WWF schedule from the 1980's. This means he can work other places, Japan especially. Not to mention, AEW has a great relationship with the NWA. AEW Dark helped NWA Power become so popular, and of course the two companies already worked closely together at All In. If MJF can work in MLW and AEW at the same time, I'm sure Scurll can work in the NWA and AEW at the same time...especially since the combined schedule of the two is still way better than working for WWE. Overall This show was not without it's flaws, for sure. The Question Mark beating Trevor Murdoch was ridiculous, as is The Rock & Roll Express still being the Tag Team Champions. The women's tag match was awful. However, I thought the opener was solid and the last two matches were very good. The announcing was excellent and the overall aesthetic of the show was decent for their first major PPV since Power debuted. I personally had some problems with my stream stalling and getting only audio, but I'm pretty sure that's more because of my crappy laptop than it was the NWA or Fite TV. Next time, I will trying using my XBOX One to stream Fite and see if that improves the video quality. Bottom line is, this show only cost me $20.00 so it was definitely worth it. One thing I loved is that the show was only around 2.5 hours long so it wasn't a chore to get through. Even the stuff I didn't like didn't drag on forever. That's a big change from the stuff I've been seeing on Wednesday Nights from both AEW and NXT, where everything has to be epic and overlong. In my opinion, there was more good than bad on this show. I'm glad I ordered it and I am excited about the potential cycle of 6-8 weeks of Power leading into a fairly priced PPV from this point forward - especially since the NWA has said they are going to continue to introduce new talent (something they certainly did with this show.) This was hardly an epic show, but it was good. More importantly, it was fun.